Award Data

Low-power Hall thrusters offer potentially important advantages for certain military applications but issues of lifetime and efficiency degradation at lower powers are issues hindering its utilization. A factor impacting efficiency is that thestate-of-the-art techniques for electron generation used for neutralization (such as hollow cathodes operating on the same propellant as the thruster) do no ...

This STTR project develops self-powered PZT sensor/actuators, MEMS temperature sensors and data transmitters, chip-sized mechanical impedance analyzers, and data processing procedures and integrates them into a self-contained structural health-monitoringpackage for wireless inspection of aerospace-weapons systems.The opportunity:Legacy system maintenance, the development of relatively disposable a ...

This STTR project is to develop technology for self-powered, self-contained structural health monitoring sensor patch to estimate structural damage and transmit results, namely, Wireless Active Structural Health Monitoring System (WASHMS) . StructuralHealth Monitoring (SHM) is an important element in improving the reliability of aerospace weapon systems. SHM has the potential to extend the life an ...

This STTR project is an in-situ/real-time aerospace composite structural self diagnosis (SSD) and structural health monioring (SHM) system/technique development with application of multifunctional characteristics of aerospace composite weapon systemstructures made of graphite-epoxy composite materials and carbon-carbon composite materials. Composite SSD and SHM are accomplished by measuring electr ...

The purpose of this proposal is the research and development of low power (about 100 W) close-drift thruster with improved magnetic field. The patented design of the magnetic field makes possible to dramatically reduce the permissible size of aconventional stationary plasma thruster (SPT) that is limited by magnetic saturation of the inner magnetic path. The thruster with our improved magnetic f ...

Knowledge Analysis Technologies (K-A-T) and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) will partner to fulfill this Research and Development effort. We propose an unprecedented suite of Usability Engineering software tools to bebuilt upon the conceptual foundation of Virginia Tech's User Action Framework (UAF). We will use K-A-T's proprietary Latent Semantic Analysis (LS ...

Carbon fiber reinforced polymer matrix composites (CPMC) are high performance materials used in aerospace/aircraft structures, advance marine vessels, and other applications. These materials are based on multifunctional epoxy, BMI, cyanate esters, andpolyimides. Improvements in CPMC properties are desirable for more demanding applications. Enhanced improvement of epoxy resins in temperature per ...

This Phase I STTR will develop a SERS detection system using nanoshells, a new class of nanoparticles with significant near field enhancement resulting from the ability to design and manufacture the particle with desired peak plasmon resonance.Preliminary data indicate that nanoshells may reproducibly provide film-based SERS enhancements of up to 10^14. This proposed research will involve (i) the ...

The Air Force maintains a fleet of aircraft that depend on low-observability to successfully carry out their missions. This low-observability depends on a continuity of electrical conductivity at the outer mold line of the aircraft, and thus the panelseams and gaps must be filled with a conducting material. Currently, metal-filled elastomers or resins are used, but these materials suffer from po ...

Rapid growth in the performance and capabilities of thermography, and the increased use of composite materials in the construction and repair of military and commercial aircraft, has strongly positioned it as a viable NDI technique. In Phase I, ThermalWave Imaging, Inc. and UD-CCM propose to develop an AC coupled, non-contact Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) technique that can evaluate 3-D state o ...